


Wake for a Daughter

by ArtemisofEphesus



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Eleventh Doctor Era, Gen, Melody Pond - Freeform, Rory Williams - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-30
Updated: 2011-09-30
Packaged: 2017-10-24 04:35:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/259068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtemisofEphesus/pseuds/ArtemisofEphesus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As the first stars appear in the evening sky, Rory Williams watches over his daughter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wake for a Daughter

**Author's Note:**

> Written for who_contest's short fic challenge "away from earth," where it won second place. Thanks everyone :)

In the evenings, when the light begins to fade and the very first stars flicker alive in the darkening sky, Rory Williams sits and watches.

It had become a ritual for him, ever since that day, six years ago. The battle of demon's run. And the demon did run, afterwards, leaving those who had fought to mourn. To comprehend. To go on living, as they were expected to, with new knowledge but no new understanding.

He stands under the stars as they begin to reveal their shining faces, on the back porch of their house in Leadworth. Somewhere out there, amidst the stars, is his daughter, Melody Pond. Or someone who once was Melody. He wonders where she is at this moment, who she is: is she still his Melody? Has she become River Song yet, that woman with the wild, curly time-hair and the guns and the spoilers, sweetie. Is she someone else completely?

The time streams confuse him. He doesn't even know how old she is now, whether she is eight months or eight years. He doesn't know if she will ever come back to him: Melody, not River Song. As much as it hurts him to see the pain in her eyes as she brings them back to their home, makes them tea in a teapot she seems gently familiar with, he knows that he cannot think of her as his daughter, not yet. She is everything he would want Melody to be - strong, courageous, a doctor in her own right - but she is not Melody.

And so he waits, like he had for two thousand years as the last centurion, watching over his wife as she slept. He wishes he could do the same for his daughter. He wishes he could know that she was safe and loved and cared for, even if he would never be able to touch her, or comfort her when she had nightmares about a woman with an eye patch and the cold steel of a gun in her hands. He wishes he could know her, fondly remember her first steps, her first day of school, her first love. But something tells him he never will. The silence of the man whom his wife calls late at night, when she thinks he is already asleep. How could a man so powerful be so powerless?

As the stars flicker into life above him, Rory Williams waits. Somewhere out there, far away from earth, his daughter is living a life he will never be able to share, not properly, not fully.

The least he can do is watch over her as she flickers in the sky.


End file.
